Sunday, December 9, 2018

Top Reasons Why Agile Adoptions Fail

Agile software development is based on an incremental, iterative approach. Instead of in-depth planning at the beginning of the project. Agile methodologies are open to changing requirements over time and encourages constant feedback from the end users. Cross-functional teams work on iterations of a product over a period of time, and this work is organized into a backlog that is prioritized based on business or customer value. The goal of each iteration is to produce a working product. Agile methodologies consist of 4 major roles which are the product owner, scrum master, developer and end user.

Mistake to avoid

1. Lack of communication and trust

Lack of trust among members will kill any team project. In the agile methodology, there are multiple dynamic pieces and members need to work together with new features on a week-to-week basis. Thus, this may result in miscommunication between team members. Moreover, to ensure that the ideas and requirements from the client are clearly passed onto the development team, both the client and developers should work closely together. If there is a lack of transparency in client’s requirement, developers will produce an application that is far different from the one the client had in mind. Therefore, it will not be labelled as a success. Hence, team project developers should commit to realistic deadlines and work together to achieve common goals.

2. Resistance to change

Change is the only thing that is consistent and software developers know about it more than anyone else. Changes may appear during the development process such as new ideas, ways to build an application or ways to achieve certain objectives. There are two methods used in software development: Agile and Waterfall. Agile method is more flexible in structure and allows change and redirection. Agile may take times to get right, however, by acknowledging the issue that other organisation faced, they can take it into account. On the other hands, the Waterfall method is more linear and does not accept any changes in the development process. Which means each step is completed after the other and cannot be returned.

3. Poor leadership

In any team, strong leadership is extremely important for managing project. He should have skill, knowledge, and experience of leading in order to eliminate any obstructions arise during the project. Moreover, the leader is the person who interacts with the end users and the developers, guiding them toward the needed business solution.

4. Lack of experience with Agile

According to a survey by VersionOne in 2016, one of the main difficulties in adopting agile method is lack of skill or experience with agile methods (41% of respondents). Based on the survey, one of the possible causes may be the lack of training in agile methods and techniques. As researched, teams tend to run into trouble if they are deficient in the ability to apply basic practices. In order to solve this problem, companies should invest in foundation training in agile techniques.